Gourry and the Great Pumpkin
by Relm Wanderer
Summary: RSBI Halloween fic 2006. Gourry is determined to meet the Great Pumpkin to get a gift. But everyone thinks he's got his holidays mixed up. Poor Gourry. - No couples in this fic


_Author's Notes: This is RSBI's 2006 Halloween fic. _

**Gourry and the Great Pumpkin**

By Relm

It was a beautiful autumn day. The brightly coloured leaves fell from the trees as the gentle breezes wisped them up and carried them along. Everything was peaceful and calm...

Until Lina showed up.

"Why are we here again?" Lina demanded as she followed Gourry along with Zelgadis and Amelia. Despite the somewhat slippery leaves that scattered the forest floor Lina was stomping in frustration instead of just normally walking. For the most part she was lucky but every now and then Lina slipped raising her anger up a couple notches.

Amelia shook her head. "You know Miss Lina you shouldn't be stomping around like that. You'll just end up slipping again and falling on your a-"

"SHUT UP AMELIA!" Lina yelled at Amelia. The sudden screaming spooked the remaining birds in the forest to fly off and join the other birds that had left earlier when Lina first entered the forest. "Gourry explain what we are doing here please? Before I hit you on the head with something big and heavy." She threatened the blond swordsman.

Gourry was oblivious to the growing rage was the radiating off Lina Inverse. He was too absorbed with his 'mission' to care of what kind of mood Lina was in. Gourry was as happy as a child in a candy store. "We're going to see The Great Pumpkin!" (_1)_

"You keep saying that but who or what is 'The Great Pumpkin'?" Zelgadis asked dryly. He too was starting to get annoyed.

"The Great Pumpkin is a person that rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is most sincere on Halloween and gives toys to good little girls and boys." Gourry answered.

"And we're going where? To a pumpkin patch?" Lina asked in disbelief. Up until that point Gourry had been very cryptic about his reason for leading them to where he was. And now that she heard it she wasn't sure if she wanted to kill Gourry or have him committed.

"Yup. The most sincere in all the land!" Gourry beamed.

"Sounds like he's got Halloween and Christmas confused with each other." Zelgadis grumbled not amused by these turn of events.

"Yeah I'll say." Lina mumbled.

"I do not! The Great Pumpkin is real!" Gourry insisted clearly very upset about the others not believing him.

"Gourry I've never heard of this 'Great Pumpkin' you're talking about. How do you know he exists?" Lina glared at Gourry while stopping in her tracks. She wasn't going to move a single step further until she got more information on Gourry's Halloween Santa Claus.

"He does! Amelia you've heard of him haven't you?" Gourry pleaded with the Sailune Princess.

Amelia frowned. "Um... I'm sure he exists Mister Gourry. But I personally have never heard of him before."

"Gourry are you sure you're not just thinking of Santa Claus and have the days mixed up?" Zelgadis asked with a sigh. This situation was giving him a headache.

"He's real! I'm not confused!" Gourry stomped his foot in frustration.

"Maybe Miss Lina has hit Mister Gourry on the head one too many times." Amelia offered.

"I've gotten a gift from the Great Pumpkin before. He gives gifts to good girls and boys." Gourry insisted.

"Why do you want to go to this pumpkin patch for?"

"To see the Great Pumpkin!"

"Why?"

"To get a gift."

Lina shook her head. "I thought you said that he goes and gives gifts to boys and girls. Why would you need to be in the pumpkin patch to get a gift for? Wouldn't he just come give one to you? And why haven't you gotten a gift from him when you've been with us?"

"We travel a lot so the Great Pumpkin wouldn't know where to deliver the gifts to." Gourry rationalized.

"Well then why haven't any of us gotten gifts before?"

"Because only good girls and boys get gifts. You're not a good at all. You're mean and greedy."

At that moment Lina's fist was on a collision course with Gourry's face but for some strange reason the blow failed to connect. That was of course because both Amelia and Zelgadis had grabbed Lina and held her back from attacking Gourry.

"LET GO OF ME!" Lina barked out.

"Miss Lina if you do you'll hurt Mister Gourry."

"I don't care! Zelgadis watch your hands!" Lina went red with embarrassment when she realized just where Zelgadis' right hand was.

"Whoops!" Zelgadis let go equally as red as Lina.

"Mister Gourry I can't believe you'd grope Miss Lina like that!" Amelia readied a fireball. "Such perversion is inexcusable."

"I didn't know what I was grabbing! I was just trying to keep her from killing Gourry. Amelia you're not really going to throw that at me are you?"

"Amelia stop it. It's not like Zelgadis hasn't grabbed my chest before." Lina tried to calm the girl.

"He's done that before?"

Lina tackled the young princess. "Amelia please you're getting sidetracked. Right now we have another situation to deal with. Gourry why the heck would you want to see this pumpkin man so much?"

"I really need a new sword! This one sucks." Gourry pointed to his replacement sword. Since losing his sword of light he'd gone through many substandard swords. Not a single one lasted longer than a couple fights. And his current one seemed as though it would break at any moment.

"So you want to go and wait at a pumpkin patch until he 'rises'?"

Gourry nodded. "Yup that's the plan."

"How do you even know he'll come out of this pumpkin patch that you are leading us to?"

"Because he only rises from the most sincere of pumpkin patches. And this one is the most sincere." Gourry insisted.

"And how do you know that?"

"I just do." And with that note Gourry continued on.

For a moment the remaining three travellers stood there in the forest trying to figure out what to do. Lina herself was very tempted to leave Gourry alone in the woods and head back to town. Zelgadis was thinking something along the same lines. But Amelia... Well Amelia wouldn't have any of it.

"We're going to go with him and that's final!" Amelia declared.

"Why?" Lina whined.

"Because what if there is something sinister in that pumpkin patch? Could you leave Mister Gourry alone to fend for himself against the evils of a demon or unruly creature?" Amelia's voice continued to rise in pitch the more she talked.

"Yes. In fact I've done it before. Why should I stop now?" Lina grinned rather smugly. Of course Lina wasn't completely heartless. She would be upset if there were something to happen to Gourry, Zelgadis and even Amelia. But in Lina's mind, Gourry could handle himself, and there didn't seem to be any danger around that she could detect. "Wouldn't matter though, that jellyfish brained idiot has all the dumb luck in the world."

"Miss Lina!"

Zelgadis shook his head. "Okay Lina I don't want to spend the night at a stupid pumpkin patch as much as you do but I don't think we really have a choice here. Though I really don't think there is anything dangerous around these parts there still could be. And do you think Amelia will let you live it down if you 'abandon' Gourry? Remember this is Amelia, whom if I remember correctly has the capacity to annoy you just as much as Gourry."

Lina balled her fists and kicked a nearby pile of leaves in frustration. "Okay fine we'll indulge in Gourry's stupid idea. But there's no way I'm staying up all night for this garbage. Once it's nightfall and the camp is set I'm going to sleep." She announced stomping her way to catch up to Gourry. Or that would have been the case if she hadn't gone over a particularly slippery patch of leaves and fell flat on her back. "Owww..." Lina groaned.

"You see Miss Lina-"

"SHUT UP AMELIA!"

...

True to her word, Lina made camp and went to sleep as soon as they reached the pumpkin patch.

To say this pumpkin patch was special was debatable. Some would say there was nothing different about this patch then any others. While others would argue that it was. Only two things really stuck out as off to Zelgadis.

To start off the patch looked perfect. It was full of lovely shaped and coloured pumpkins. So full that it was obvious that no one had been harvesting the patch at all. Usually the purpose of growing a pumpkin patch was to peddle your wares to the masses. But the patch was filled to the brim with various shapes and sizes of pumpkins. It was almost as though they had stumbled on a wild patch that had no farmer tending it. Though that itself was a strange thing. Perfectly manicured and neatly farmed land did not occur naturally in nature. The land looked like someone had tended it. Another problem in this logic was forest covering the perimeter. If this pumpkin patch did indeed belong to someone then they sure did have a strange way of choosing where to plant seed.

The second thing Zelgadis found strange was the fog. On the whole trek the sky had been white overcast with clouds. But as soon as they had reached the patch there was fog everywhere. It stayed low to the ground making the orange pumpkin look like orange bumps in a blanket of white. As the night progressed the fog more dense and the air much cooler.

Though these factors were a little odd, Zelgadis wasn't going to let it bother him. "Gourry are you really going to stay up all night just to see this Great Pumpkin of yours?"

"Yup!" Gourry nodded his head enthusiastically.

"I'm going to stay up too with Mister Gourry! I want to meet the Great Pumpkin too." Amelia added while drinking a mug of soup.

"Whatever. Just don't be loud. I'm going to go to sleep." And with that Zelgadis went straight to sleep.

Amelia frowned at Zelgadis' behaviour as she poured Gourry a mug of soup. "Mister Gourry what does the Great Pumpkin look like?"

Gourry starched his chin in thought. "Well my sister used to tell me that he was this really tall skinny man with vines for limps and a pumpkin for a head. He wears a big black cape and his eyes and mouth glow. That's why people carve pumpkins and light them up with candles. To make them look like the Great Pumpkin. Though I never understood why they call them jack-o-lanterns. Maybe the Great Pumpkin's first name is Jack. Oh and the Great Pumpkin has lots of sharp teeth." Gourry explained.

Amelia shivered. "He sounds scary looking."

"Well maybe that's why he never gave you a gift Amelia. You're too quick to make judgements about people you don't know." Gourry surmised.

"I do not! But you have to admit it, he does sound scary looking."

...

As the night carried on the lulls of sleep were getting harder and harder to ignore. Gourry's eyes felt like had weights attached to his lids. Every so often Gourry's eyes would close and it would take longer and longer to open them back up again. "Well Amelia I'm sure getting sleepy. Want to play a game to keep awake?" He asking Amelia droopy eyes.

Amelia failed to respond.

"Amelia?" Gourry looked over to Amelia and wasn't shocked to see that the Sailune Princess had already fallen asleep. "Great. Well at least I'm better at this than Amelia. I don't need her to keep me awake. I can stay awake on my own just-" Before Gourry could manage to finish his sentence he had fallen forward asleep before his head touched the ground.

...

At some point in the late night/early morning Amelia woke up with a start. "I fell asleep! Mister Gourry wake up!" Amelia shook Gourry repeatedly until he woke.

"Huh?" Was all that Gourry could manage to say in his confused half awake state.

"Mister Gourry we both feel asleep. Did we miss the Great Pumpkin?"

Gourry looked around in confusion. "No I don't think so. No we haven't missed him yet."

"I'm sorry I feel asleep Mister Gourry. I'll try to stay awake this time." Amelia promised. But that fell on deaf ears as Gourry had already drifted back off to dreamland.

"MISTER GOURRY!"

"I'm up!" Gourry got up with a start.

"Want to play eye spy?"

"Okay. Eye spy with my little eye something that is um... orange."

Amelia sighed. "It's a pumpkin isn't it?"

"Wow you're sure good at this!" Gourry grinned.

Amelia groaned. "Oh well at least I'll stay awake this way."

...

Hours later the sun began to rose in the sky signalling the beginning of a new day.

Lina woke groggily with a stretch. "Did you two meet your stupid pumpkin man?" She called out to Amelia and Gourry.

Amelia shook her head. "No we didn't."

"It's 'The Great Pumpkin'!" Gourry yelled back.

"Whatever this was a waste of time. Let's pack up and go. There's a treasure in the next town with my name on it." Lina rubbed her hands while thinking of all the money she was going to get.

...

On the trek towards the next town Gourry was really depressed. He was so sure that the Great Pumpkin did exist. Or at least he had been. Now he wondered if maybe Lina and Zelgadis had been right about him. Maybe he was just indeed confusing Halloween and Christmas together.

Zelgadis suddenly froze and drew his sword. "We're not alone." He stated in a very low voice.

Gourry drew his sword as four trolls came running out of the trees towards them. "Great well I'll definitely need a new sword at this fight. Stupid trolls always take so much effort to kill."

Four trolls wouldn't normally be a problem for Lina and her merry band of heroes however the four trolls had some trolls friends. About let's say fifteen of them. Of course Lina and company were the ones that came out victorious.

"Yuck!" Amelia scrunched her nose as she tried to get some of the troll blood from her off white tunic. "I really don't like trolls."

"Me too. But better trolls then werewolves." Lina answered cryptically.

Gourry was going to ask her what she meant by that until he noticed his sword was still intact. In fact it was better than it was before, not a single crack or anything. Upon further observation Gourry realized that it wasn't the same sword. This new sword seemed better balanced and made of a stronger material. "When did I get this?" He wondered looking at the hilt of the sword. Just under the base of the blade on the handle was a crest etched in. The crest was that of a smiling jack-o-lantern.

**HAPPY HALLOWEEN!**

_(1) Disclaimer:_

_-The Great Pumpkin is property of the Peanuts comic strip/Charlie Brown cartoons, creator Charles M. Schultz and his family. I do not own The Great Pumpkin or anything related to the Charlie Brown universe. _


End file.
